


There's Only So Much Wine

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anger, Angst, Break Up, M/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 04:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14465349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: Yesterday's research is scattered across the floor like a tide rolled out and left it there. There is one quarter-inch of whiskey left in a bottle capped only with the blood from Dean's mouth.





	There's Only So Much Wine

It's not _this_ particular thing, but it doesn't have to be any, one, particular thing. Humanity - both the times he's lived in it and the times he's lived among it - have clarified, for Castiel, that there doesn't actually have to be a line that's crossed or one single last straw.

You end up giving the people you love a lot of your last straws and reach for more to hand over when you know damn well you should be out.

Maybe your real _last straws_ are you own. And you keep them.

The sun is rising and Cas is keeping his last straws for another day.

He drove far out here in the small hours of the morning, at the time, as much to save the Impala from its owner as to punctuate what he'd finally said.

It's unlikely he'll ever not love Dean. Or fall out of love with him. Or stop wanting to be around him. That is an unbreakable fact of himself. Tapping his grace and healing somebody doesn't take all their scars. Doesn't zap away depression. Can't possibly make an alcoholic _not_ an alcoholic.

Grace heals your hurts but doesn't heal your fundamentals. Those aren't wrong with you. They're not broken; they're you. If he could ask to be healed by God, He would not heal this. There's nothing He could tap that could make you not love.

Dean's handed out his own straws and maybe he keeps the ones he keeps to drink from.

The car's metal is night-cool under Castiel's hands when he starts moving to get off the trunk and step to the dirt at the side of the highway.

Six cars passed, from 3 a.m. to dawn. None offered help and he was glad for it. He didn't need help; he wasn't abandoned. The car is in working order. He just pulled off the road and stopped and decided to decide.

He pulls Dean's keys from his pocket and gets in. Starts up.

These pockets are Dean's too, it feels like. Jeans that Dean bought him. All he's wearing right now is what Dean bought him when he moved into the bunker.

Dean wanted this. And gave so much for it to work.

Then he ran out of straws, maybe.

Castiel drives back to Lebanon and when he opens the garage door, nobody comes out.

There are some boxes. A couple bags in one of the other cars.

There's a set of keys on the wall, belonging to a clunker Sam had to steal in Duluth.

And that'll do. Yeah.

He takes his jacket off and leaves the keys in it. Leaves the jacket in the front seat.

Upstairs, in their bedroom-- in Dean's bedroom, he's on the floor. Same position as when Cas left. On his right side, one arm sprawled out, an old copper pot from the kitchen beside his head. A pillow under him where Cas jammed it. A blanket still in place over his shoulders where Cas dropped it. A bruise above his eye and blood dried on his split lip. Cell phone cracked, the back of it lying three feet from where it was flung at the concrete wall, various pieces having ricocheted on impact.

Dean would do that a lot, when things didn't go right. That was one of Cas's straws.

He hurt from deep in his being every time Dean looked that disappointed. Cas would instantly feel awful. Dean would fly into a rage or just silently lash out. Punch a motel room wall or send a lamp flying.

Yesterday's research is scattered across the floor like a tide rolled out and left it there. There is one quarter-inch of whiskey left in a bottle capped only with the blood from Dean's mouth.

Cas packs what is his and some of what he was given that wasn't his and he puts it in the car. Dean doesn't move, not even when he's done.

If Dean were awake, he would know it. And if Dean were awake, he would pretend not to be awake.

Dean is not Sam's responsibility, so Cas doesn't call him right now.

Similarly, Sam would flinch when Dean got this angry and this sad and felt this defeated. His heart would hammer the way it did when he thought about John Winchester and so, yes, Cas understood when Sam finally left. When his straws were all out and he couldn't do it anymore. Day after Christmas, two years ago.

Cas thought that if he moved in, Dean wouldn't beat his own head into a wall when that happened. He was ready for the rage when Sam finally left and it came and Cas survived it. Dean breathed and saw Sam on occasional hunts.

He also thought things would get even better after Dean kissed him and then they happened.

They're still happening, though, and, in all fact, angelic grace is made of love. It's sourced and fueled from love, even when it's used to do things that are fucked.

Grace can't stop Dean just like love can't stop Dean. He's not broken; he's just Dean.

Cas doesn't pause next to him to bring the blanket further up his shoulder. He doesn't remove the weapons from the room or try to cover the fact that he's taken his things from it and left it.

He will text Sam, later. Maybe meet him for coffee. But he knows that "I moved out" won't require an explanation.

Sam will say, "Yeah," and sigh and sip his coffee.

That demon-blooded boy, for as awful as he's supposed to have become, arguably has more grace than anyone in their family and it still wasn't ever gonna heal Dean. Not when what Dean saw in his brother's love was something he'd have to kill or die for to reciprocate.

Castiel knows, now, that Dean doesn't get that and, just maybe, he never will get that the answer to the love people give him isn't sacrifice.

Not wanting to watch Dean sacrifice anymore of himself, Cas turns off all but the dimmest lamp and mostly closes the door behind him. He leaves the Impala's keys and the shattered ceramic of the mug Dean threw in the kitchen and even every single lore book he would rather take with.

He's picked up enough broken glasses in this bunker to understand that Dean honestly feels destroyed that he doesn't find the right things at the bottom of them. He'll get new ones at the Goodwill next month. Like chipped old mugs just get adopted to come here and die.

Sometimes, too drunk to string together a sentence, he'd turn to Cas to be kissed. The first time landed them in bed the next day, but every time since has been about something that wasn't them.

Castiel isn't willing to kiss Dean anymore if kissing him isn't about how much they love one another.

He can't even define exactly what it _has been_ about lately, but it hasn't been them as a family or he wouldn't leave Cas alone with his incoherent rage and then pass out for ten hours at a time, if it was.

And greeting Dean every morning-after isn't love, either. It's not improving Dean's health to clean up after him and tell him that acting like this is okay.

This morning, to love him is to leave him.

He locks the door, drives out, shuts the garage. He realizes the trunk won't latch and has to go back in for a bungee cord. Once the car is all rigged, he closes the bunker and understands that might be the last time.

So when he sits behind the wheel of the car, closes himself in, he lets himself be angry, at last.

This isn't Dean's fault. But refusing help is Dean's fault. After all the fucking demon deals and the times he's broken and changed and nearly killed himself, he should know that the only smart way to keep going is to accept help, but he won't. That _is_ his fault.

Not changing this when he has the power to changes it is his fault.

Maybe there are ways Cas could have been a better partner, but this is the last option he has. Unlike straws, he can't materialize options out of nowhere. He can't make Dean accept help; he can't make Dean want to stop hunting, or slow down, or change his life, or stop answering all defeat with alcohol and mental self-destruction.

So he is sad and angry in the car for a while. And then he puts it in drive. And he isn't anything but brokenhearted, straight down I-35.

«»

This is how Dean wanted it to happen. So.

It's happened.

He doesn't know who will contact Sam first, but he's never been good at waiting and Cas is eons old. So he suspects it's him.

Even the ring is hesitant when Sam finally responds to the text with a call. Like seriously, he calls and the call cuts.

And then he calls and it rings through enough times for Dean to pick up.

"Hey," Sam offers, his voice sounds like someone who doesn't want to flinch too much in the presence of a bomb.

Dean's text just said, **Cas is gone now too.** Which wasn't fair, he knows that. It's not like Sam's leaving presaged Cas's. More like Cas swooped in when Sam couldn't take it anymore. And, yeah, Dean knows that.

"You didn't have to call," Dean sighs. "Just thought you should know."

Sam isn't going to ask if he's okay. He knows what was happening, so he knows that Dean's not.

It's kind of a conversation that's already over.

"I'm in Cincinnati. Wanna come work this case?"

Dean makes it to the kitchen and fumbles a bottle of water from the fridge. It falls shut slowly and he sees his broken coffee cup handle swaying next to his toes on the tile.

He slides down to the floor on his ass and cracks the bottle open to chug some. Puts it down and snags the ceramic shard. "You need hands or you just offering so I have something to do?"

"Yeah, I could use the help," Sam's forcibly offhanded. That's how Dean knows he hasn't talked to Cas yet.

"No, actually," he twirls the handle between his fingers. "Think I'll.... you just. You can call if you really need me, but." He shrugs.

Sam is quiet down the line.

That's the sound of Sam not offering to come back because he won't.

And Cas won't.

"Maybe I'll post an ad. 'Renters needed.' Maybe I'll hang a suggestion box up on the front door."

He's an ass and he knows he's an ass.

"Oh, I've got suggestions," Sam says.

That's like a whole world record for how fast Sam has gone from sympathetic to critical. "Just so we're clear, you really _don't_ need hands on deck?"

"Yeah, I'm good here," Sam agrees. "We done?"

"Yeah. We're done."

Sam hangs up.

Dean sets his phone on his knee and tink-tink-tinks his fingernail against the hook of the cup handle.

He knows what he's doing and he knows he won't change.

That's why Cas took his shit and left.

Dean chucks the piece at the trash in the corner and misses. It clunks against the rim, bounces, and breaks into two more pieces against the leg of the table.

Yeah, that's about par for the course. Break more. Make sure there's more of a mess.

Something strikes him and he's suddenly curious.

He gets up and finds his laptop in the library.

If he tracks Sam's number...

The GPS is still totally active on Sam's phone. He really is in Cincinnati.

Has he kept it on, from phone to phone, all of the past two years?

He hesitates. But then searches Castiel's.

Cas made it down to Texas.

If he wanted to call, he knows Cas would answer and he knows the conversation wouldn't be pleasant.

He knew what Sam was gonna say when he called him, too.

Neither of them ever tells him to crawl back into his bottle and not come out, though. No matter how nasty things get.

There's stuff flown everywhere. He can't even remember what he was angry about. Can barely remember most of the last hunt.

He remembers hating this.

That doesn't change anything. All he's tasting right now is beer. It's all he wants.

When he was leaving, Sam told Dean why he was going, once and for all. Not all of it, but enough of it.

Cas is alternately the most ruthless and the most merciful one in their family. That could be why he didn't say a single word. He knew Dean had heard it all before.

He didn't wanna rub it in. Didn't wanna draw it out. Just ripped himself away and let the north wind have his back.

Every time something goes wrong and most the time things are just okay, he's not sober. He woke up sober one morning last month and solved that problem with prejudice.

Ain't even trying to drown out the losses anymore.

Maybe he just. Doesn't want to be awake.

There's a hard question Dean should be able to answer for himself. What does he miss more, right now - a beer or Sam? Whiskey or Cas?

He should be able to answer this question crawling through a desert and under angelic torture and with half his guts hung onto a spike rack in the pit, like it were his name, rank, and blood type.

But if he drinks until he's not conscious again, then he doesn't have to answer any questions. He can dive into his cool sheets and play music from days where he was whipping down county roads, pushing 75 or 80, and he could solve any problem. Kick any shit. Find any missing innocent. Be a safe place for his family. Have the trust of people he counted on.

Sometimes, as lately as last year, he'd wake up in the middle of the morning. Cas didn't have to sleep, but was there with him in bed. Dean could push the sheets down and expose him. Cradle him in one hand and then skim his hand over Cas's thighs. Scoot forward and be held without a single comment. Kiss him without having to talk about it. Stare at him in the near-dark and not have to be afraid of wanting.

He was getting old last year. Thinking maybe he landed Cas and it was permanent. Maybe they ought to have a picture on the desk next to mom. Maybe it was a little more important to be able to draw Cas's leg over his hip than kill every damn vampire himself.

This year it fell apart again. Always some catastrophe. Only Sam hits the road again after they save everybody and wrap up. Half the time, Sam isn't even hunting. He's got an apartment someplace on the east coast and he writes books and Dean accidentally downloads them from strangers on deep-web message boards when he's trying to figure out how to kill something. His name on the last page of the PDF like an afterthought. Like somebody had to remind him to claim his work. **Written and updated by S. Winchester.**

Dean can't make him proud of himself. He's saved this world so many times and he can't hold his head high. He should know how fucking valuable he is. How priceless his damn giant head is.

And Dean can't give Cas reasons to stay. He's blacked out more than once in the time they've been together, but he's still pretty sure he never told him he loved him.

Or proved it, either.

He can't make Cas understand that he shouldn't ghost off in the night. He's not something that can just be deleted. Dean would rather have had fucking ten arguments with him about this before a crack to the jaw and some inevitable earth-shattering fight.

But Dean can't make Cas understand that he makes a difference. That he's a good guy. That he shouldn't just curl up and disappear.

He cooks and feeds himself real food for lunch. And drinks fucking five of those water bottles.

He drinks coffee but his hands shake at the end of the day and he has a beer. Four beers.

Not enough to get drunk. Just enough to write a text message and not send it. Stare at it on the screen and read it to himself.

Dean knows what he can't make Sam understand. He knows what he can't make Cas understand.

 **What can't you make me understand?** Dean wants to ask.

There are things too thick to penetrate their skulls. Alternate dimensions, impossible monsters, time bending. These things all somehow make sense in a universe where it still doesn't make sense to Sam that the whole world ought to love him as much as Dean does.

Can't cram into Cas's head that he has only ever done the right thing. Or that it matters that he's done the wrong things for really good fucking reasons.

So what is Dean's cracked skull still not porous enough to absorb?

He sees it on the phone screen as clearly as he sees the brandy sitting on the old sideboard. But only one feels like it matters.

«»

A couple days later, driving to Idaho, he doesn't realize that what he heard was his text tone because he didn't expect Cas to reach out. Just, like, _at all_.

When he taps the screen, idly, at a restaurant, his unsent text sits in the reply box with Cas's new message hovering above it.

**Are you in Kansas?**

Dean thinks "not anymore" is both the wrong answer and a reference Cas will get that will make him roll his eyes so he deletes his unsent text and responds, **Should I be?**

There isn't a reply until he's done and paying his bill.

**I would like to come by and copy some material. Will return books promptly. Don't want to bother you.**

No emoji.

And it doesn't say, 'I'd rather you weren't there when I stopped by,' and it isn't like Cas isn't capable of being that guy but.

He wouldn't say that.

And if Dean were there and he were hammered and he pawed at him, Cas probably wouldn't shake him off.

Which only makes Dean want to fucking vomit.

**Won't be there this week. Feel free.**

And it doesn't say, 'Text me when you're done,' and it isn't like Dean isn't capable of being that guy but.

Maybe he tries to get done with this hunt early. Maybe he doesn't.

«»

Near Upland, Dean pulls off to the side of the road and hits his flask. He hasn't done that in four days.

He bites his thumbnail and calls Sam. Hasn't done that in four days, either.

"You still after that damn thing?" Sam answers.

"No. Need you to do me a favor. Call Cas and make sure he's out of town already."

It's so silent he looks at his phone to see if the call dropped.

"Sam?"

"Why?"

"He said he was gonna go by. Don't think he wants to see me, so?"

"Right." Sam pauses. "Yeah. Uh. Gimme three minutes."

It's more like eight. When he calls back, Sam sounds suddenly exhausted. Dean sits in the driver's seat again and waits. "He's not," Sam says.

"Good. Alright." Yeah. Good. "Thanks, Sammy."

"Look," Sam says as he's pulling the phone away from his ear. He almost hangs up. "Dean?"

"What?"

He honestly sounds 90 years old. "I think he was waiting for you and decided not to."

Dean taps the steering wheel. "Oh."

Okay.

"I realize-- look. I realize I stopped saying anything. And. Well, I realized that a long time after you stopped listening."

He doesn't wait for Dean to say something, really, just takes a breath.

"You." He stops again. "You know what? Nevermind. Anyway. It's all clear."

"Don't-- Sam. Don't stop because you think I won't listen, now," he sighs.

"Yeah now. Now. But not tonight when you're drinking to forget it so. Forget it, now."

This is the guy who signs his full-on _academic textbook PDFs_ like he's barely willing to admit he has a name.

"I won't forget," Dean spits. "Fuckin' say it."

"You could ask him to turn around. And he would. That's all."

Dean's keeping a bag in the passenger seat these days. His long-tall little brother used to live and breathe every moment there. Dean's keeping a bag there with roasted peanuts, a little box of dark chocolate-covered espresso beans (he doesn't wanna talk about it, thanks), and an open case of water bottles.

He's had just beer all week, only at the end of each day, and this one shot from his flask that's still burning his throat. He's starting to wonder if he always had heartburn and just couldn't feel it before, or if the whiskey is telling him he's gotten old this month.

The peanuts are unsalted because unsalted boring-ass peanuts and caffeine don't make him want to drink.

If he has to watch his own back, maybe he has to be sober. And maybe if he's going to call Cas and ask him to turn around, he has to be sober. And maybe if he wants to stop growing old this year, he's gonna have to be more sober than he's been.

"Can you do me one more favor?"

Sam takes a breath. "Sure."

"Write down what you can't make me understand. Send it to me. Text me or. Whatever just. Send the actual words to me."

"What I can't...." he puzzles out. "What I can't make you understand."

"Whatever I need to understand before you're willing to so much as share a motel room with me again. Whatever _that_ is. Write it down. And. I'm gonna read it. I'll work on it."

He isn't scoffing but it does sound steeped in disbelief when Sam finally answers. "What's that gonna do?"

Dean shrugs. "Donno. Lemme try it."

"Dean," he sputters. "I don't think I know where to start."

"What, I sent you to college to get all that damn book learnin' and you can't-"

"You literally didn't send me to college. It was the whole entire opposite of that."

"Eventually. Is all I'm asking. When you feel like it. If-- if you can, okay? You don't have to. It's a favor," he repeats, "you'd be doing me a favor."

"Whatever." The blow-off doesn't have the normal vitriol they usually end their conversations on these days. "Yeah, whatever," he sounds confused once more and hangs up.

«»

If Cas had gotten the call when he passed that one point in the highway, where he made the decision that night, he might not have answered. Maybe it would have felt like it had meaning.

There's a lot less meaning when he answers browsing the kitchenware aisle. He stopped for a rest and the store sucked him in. It was boots, first, then socks, and now he's just comparing muffin tins for no reason and Dean calls.

"Yes?"

"Um. Cas?"

"Dean."

He's quiet. "You, um. You're probably out of the state already, huh?"

"No. I'm not yet."

"Not yet?"

"The-- I stopped before the state line, I'm just. I had to get some things."

"Oh. Okay, well. Sounds pretty far, I guess."

That's not a point that's ever mattered to Dean in his entire life. He once wanted to see a movie he'd been waiting months for and they had to _drive to and sleep in_ Colorado because Dean wasn't happy with any of the nearby theatres. Cas can't prove the theory, but at a certain point heading back in from the east, he's pretty sure Dean can sleep while driving, navigating by habit alone.

"Can you do something for me? You don't-- I know you probably won't be back this way for a while."

That sounds somewhat loaded. He isn't sure he can do anything for Dean without putting himself back by Dean's side. Sam said distance was probably good for him right now.

"It doesn't have to be right away. And it's gonna sound stupid," Dean jumps in. "So just. When you get a chance or. If you even understand what I'm talking about."

"I don't."

"I know. I. I'm asking you to write something down for me. That's all."

Cas looks around. It's the middle of a workday. There aren't many people in the store. There's a particularly saintly retail worker humming to herself a few aisles over, radiating the kind of low-level love-bordering-on-grace that sits in his ears like a buzzing gnat and would bother anyone with the kind of senses that could feel it. He starts strolling over to the next aisle.

"What is it you need?" he shrugs.

"Can you write what-- can you." Dean fumbles for the words. "I, uh. You know what. Don't worry about it right now. Just ask Sam about it when you have time. I don't. I don't want you to-- you should keep your distance. You should have that. I don't want to- Nevermind."

This is, perhaps, why he shouldn't have answered. Because he's going to ask. And it's too hard to pick a side against Dean to say 'no' to whatever it is he wants.

"What is it you need?" he repeats.

Dean gusts a static breath. "When you... when you're totally disgusted with me or frustrated or something, I just need you to focus on it and write down why. Write down what you can't make me understand about it. Okay?"

He sees something on the shelf in that moment. Shifts it to read the label. "Write it and give it to you?"

"Yeah."

He has to ask. His other hand finds his car keys in his pocket. "Why would writing it mean any more to you than when I told it to you as I loved you and watched you ignore it?"

Dean doesn't answer immediately. "You're right," he says quietly. "I don't know how to answer that."

Castiel listens. Truly listens through the hush of the line and his own internal workings, where the prayer used to resonate through him.

He must be home, by now. Sam called to make sure they didn't bump into each other if they didn't want to. That was this morning.

Cas was going to wait in town until he saw the Impala pass through. Then decide if he should approach Dean. But he didn't have any reason to and he didn't think Dean wanted to see him.

"Should we talk about it?" he offers.

"I think you tried to talk to me about it forever and I never... never got it. Or listened. Or. Gave you anything. I think you gave me too much and. If you're willing to give me even one more thing it should just be this. And I can try to. I donno. Try to pull it apart and jam the little pieces of it into my own ears until it sinks in. I donno," he repeats.

Cas thinks. "If I were to come by, would you be uncomfortable?"

"What... about any of this is comfortable?" he seems truly baffled.

Cas clears his throat. "If I were to come by, would you react negatively in a physical manner that would result in injury, _or_ , negatively in a behavioral manner with the intent to make me feel worse than this entire situation already makes me feel?"

"I... don't know if you understand that you're impressive even when you're calling me a jerkoff. Just for the record, I just don't see how you can't see that. Um. I think the answer is 'no'? But I am, in fact, a jerkoff, so it just ain't possible to make guarantees."

Cas nods. "That makes sense."

"I mean, does it?"

He gathers the few things he wants to buy into a basket.

"Anyway. Thanks for. The warning and talking to Sam and everything."

"You're awful at pretending this is what you want," Cas observes.

"I am putting in the effort of pretending. That's a step in a direction," Dean points out.

"Some sort of direction," he agrees.

"I'm not handling this, man," his voice finally breaks just a little. "Just. Fucking let me not handle it in silence, at least, alright?"

That's why he's asking Cas to write it down.

But here's a secret: Castiel would rather watch him angrily baffled or even a crying wreck in person. Not for any sense of personal satisfaction. Rather, because it would completely supersede the impact of waiting another year for Dean to read and process the words and come to terms with them enough to speak them aloud.

Tactician that he is, he tells Dean he'll think about it. He's on his way back to his short-term rental. He has to hang up and go, now.

The Dean who lets him go immediately and lets him have his space isn't the one he's going to write an emotional email to. He has no interest in knowing that man.

The exasperated Dean who has been lied to, whom he sees three hours later at the door to the bunker, is the man he wants to spend the rest of his existence with. Even if maybe he won't be able to sleep with him for another few weeks.

He brings his bag of purchases in when Dean steps aside in the hall to let him through.

"You didn't have to come," Dean repeats, at a loss for anything else to say.

"I know." He stops and turns. Watches Dean shut and lock the front door. "Will you let me come in, anyway?"

He looks annoyed, tosses his hand. "You're here. God. It's your. I mean. It's- there's always a space for you."

Downstairs he drops his duffel and his shopping bag on the war room table. He observes Dean until he gets weirded out by it. They've been doing this for years so that actually takes a significant amount of time.

"You want a beer or something?" he finally asks.

Castiel blinks. "Do you?"

"Yes," he answers, honest and instant. "All the fucking time."

"I noticed."

Dean shuffles left for a second like he thinks he's supposed to go get them both beers. And stops and breathes. Rolls his eyes at himself.

Cas can read it on his face: Three weeks ago they were still having sex. This week, Dean doesn't know how close to stand to him.

"Do you want a list of all you did? And time to repent?"

"Repenting is. Your game." He ends a lot more hesitantly than he aimed for.

"So, if not that, then what?"

"Change. I can." He shrugs. "I-I donno. Change maybe. I mean I know it took me fucking years but I get that I was in a-" he pantomimes a circle. "It doesn't matter. I don't know how this will hold. I don't-- I'm not even doing this for anyone. There's nobody even here," he shrugs, indicating the rest of the bunker, the old humming quiet of it where family has come and gone and gone and, mostly, gone.

"If not for anyone else then. Maybe. For yourself?" Cas leads him there.

"Maybe, yeah. Maybe."

"You can change for yourself. That isn't self-indulgent or taboo. That's not asking too much. That's healthy. That's good."

He flinches a laugh. Like he hopes no one catches on to that outside of these walls. "Okay."

"You don't have to have Sam's interest in yoga to be healthy. I'm just wondering if you knew that."

"I'm not healthy. I'm never gonna be _healthy_ , for fuck's sake. I'm a goddamn national disaster!!"

That went downhill a little slower than Cas even expected, which shouldn't be a relief but, honestly, if it went on a minute longer he probably would have pulled his box of clothes out of the car tonight, repeating the entire pattern of their lives.

His friend - his best friend and his partner and this person he loves - doesn't understand this. He's struggling to. And it seems like he finally will. But after some work.

What he's doing, at long last, is giving Cas a job he actually fucking wants.

He turns and takes the shopping bag. Goes to the kitchen. Lets Dean follow.

There's a case of water still in the fridge. But not the same case - not the same brand. A new one. There are empties in the recycling, mingling with brown bottles.

He brings two waters to the table and sets one across from where he sits, for Dean.

"Jesus," he sighs, sitting. "I'm drowning."

"Your body is mostly water, so, actually, that feeling is _maintaining_ , not _drowning_. Dean."

He sighs once more but focuses.

"You can always ask this of me. And you don't even have to use all those words. Just. Listen. If that's all you can do? Then, just listen."

There's a long, heavy moment before he leans on the table and it looks like attention. So. That works.

Cas nods. "What I can't make you understand?" he asks.

Dean's eyes dart around and his jaw locks. But he nods.

"I can't make you understand that I can help. And that I want.... want you to ask me again, without the built-in caveat that I should answer your question and give you this information _when I have time_ and after I've asked Sam about it and whenever I'm finally adjusted to leaving you alone. I can't make you understand I'm here for you at all times, so," he shrugs. "So I stopped trying to be here for you." He sits back and drinks from his bottle even if he doesn't have to. They can do this together. He waits for Dean to sit up and crack his and drink. "It was hurting me to keep trying when I wanted it for you, but you didn't want it for yourself," he admits. "I was done."

Dean flinches again. Doesn't laugh this time. Thinks for a moment. "Was."

"Was," Cas agrees.

"Past tense."

"Possibly."

"That's not... all I'm focusing on out of what you just said -- I just wanna make it clear -- you said that was past-tens-"

"I'm not staying," he says, as a tactician.

If Dean stops listening just because of that, then, frankly, the conversation is over.

But if he flinches and takes it and waits. Well.

Then he wasn't just asking because he wants someone to come back home to him.

It must not be _all_ of what he wants because he straightens up and nods and, even if he can't seem to make eye contact anymore, he repeats what he just learned. "I was supposed to wanna know this even if you weren't ready to tell me. Sounds shitty but, okay, if that's what you want, then I need my list."

"List?"

"Well, it's a tool," Dean focuses on rotating the bottle by the neck. "If I have to do this job, I need the tools to do the job. I don't have them on my own. I'm fucking-- I mean, all I got out of this so far is that I'm supposed to ask, no matter what. If that's the only tool I got, then I have to ask before you leave again and I have to ask by text message as soon as I wake up and I have to check in by phone every couple days until you answer the damn question and give me my damn list. How the fuck else does this work?"

Cas drags the shopping bag back across the kitchen table and pulls out two things.

Dean grabs one. They're a sleeve of plastic, microwave-safe, dishwasher-safe reusable drinking cups.

"Five for a dollar. They were on clearance." There's a stack of blue-yellow Easter egg patterned ones and a stack with a green shamrock pattern. "They might crack when you throw them, but they won't-"

"I won't throw them," he almost whispers. "God. I." He shakes his head. Laughs in an ugly way and shuffles his fingers into his hair, scratching. "I remember when dad would. When. The first time Sammy wanted a Christmas with a tree, he didn't say it like that, he said he wanted to have it with a real family. He said it like that: 'a real family.' And dad, he. He was six beers deep and he just." He shakes his head again. "God."

Sam didn't tell anyone why he moved out. Why he left his brother, finally, bereft of straws.

Sam didn't _have to_ tell any of them.

Dean turns. His whole face and his posture turns. "Yeah," he says to himself.

"You can't let yourself tell you what Sam's list looks like. You don't know. You've realized that you don't know. You've realized that you have to wait for Sam to give it to you. Wait for him."

"Okay," he's somewhere far away.

"Wanna know what else I know?" Cas prompts.

"Yes. Definitely."

"I know what you can do other than just waiting for hunts and waiting for the last hunt that will kill you. I couldn't make you understand there was something besides that."

"There was Sam," he answers sadly. "There was you."

"There was more than just us. There _is_ more than just us. I can't make you understand that, today. Maybe I can only make you understand one thing a day."

Dean's head twitches up. He finally makes eye contact to look _offended_. "I can understand more than one thing at a time."

" _I_ know you can. But do _you_ know you can? Every time we give you credit for being smart you throw it in the garbage right in front of us. Do you know that hurts?"

He softens and the shame returns immediately.

It used to be that defiance would pull up onto shore in the vacuum of these moments.

This is progress, too.

Still not enough reason to shove him up the wall and kiss him. Come home to him. Stay home.

Cas balls up the shopping bag and stands.

"No, hey," Dean stands with him, hand out but not touching. "There are other things, right? I need all of them."

He shakes his head. "You don't. You're doing it right now."

Dean follows back to the main room. "I'm not doing anything right now. I'm fucking just. Dying here. I'm just. I'm grabbing at straws!"

Cas pauses. Straws again. But he shrugs. "Grabbing is fine. Asking was fine. I've been waiting for you to ask. Saying it _at_ you clearly did nothing. Saying it _to_ you is what I'd been waiting for."

"You didn't wait!" Dean bursts. "You _left_."

This is true.

"You couldn't wait for it _around me_ ," Dean determines.

"I wasn't waiting for anything. I was enabling. That had to end." That's one of the very few things Sam ever says about why he left. 'Enabling' is the word he uses and this is the first time Cas has used it to Dean's face, on his own.

Dean stands there wavering. Not ignoring, but, physically swaying in another direction. Like he wants to follow Cas to the stairs and out the door but he could just as easily head to the library where there are old crystal decanters and barely any matching tumblers left.

Castiel watches Dean swallow and think about whatever his instant reaction was going to be.

He must not have had anything to drink yet, today, because there's a tremor in his hands that's visible, now. His posture is hunched like he's a little achy and nauseous. His jaw tight. _All_ of his fucking effort is being channeled into specifically choosing his reactions right now. And focusing on which of them is the right one. The one that will either prevent Cas from walking up those stairs or prevent him from coming back.

Cas has always been proud of Dean. Maybe not in his methods, but in his results, and in where his motives come from. Wanting to save and protect. That's honorable. The unfortunate truth is that he won't extend those protections to himself. Ultimately, that must end, because it's a state of affairs that his family has found unacceptable for a very long time. Sam and him, they're just too tired of watching Dean climb down to dangle himself off of cliffs all day long.

He can still be proud when Dean's eyes soften and he comes forward to Cas instead of walking backwards. Even if it's rooted in love and loss and disappointment and hunger, Cas would rather Dean try to rekindle some sort of renewal of desire than go searching the empty ends of glasses for any way not to feel a lifetime of wins and losses and losses and losses.

To credit himself. To love himself. To respect himself as they do. That's what Sam and Cas want him to understand that never got through to him.

"I'll put the cups in the dishwasher," he says, stepping close. His shoulders are sloped like defeat. There's a sweet heat that comes off of him that Castiel can only just smell. More signs of detox that would be abated by the few beers he'd likely have as soon as Cas drove away for the night.

Weaning himself off of alcohol is a step, too. Not an efficient one, and quite unlikely to work.

But they are, after all, living on God's great expanse of mystery and intrigue and magic and grace.

He palms Dean's head and brings their foreheads together, gently. He never liked seeing Dean get kicked around and, doing it himself, even just a little bit, is not what Cas wants.

Though, he still has to leave tonight.

Last week, he thought, if he ever came back, he wanted Dean to just reveal some quiet and complete understanding of all of this, out of hand. Magic is real, right here, where they come from, and if he were to come home to Dean, he wanted to find his partner awake, accepting, healthy, ready to work, ready to live the rest of their lives without the haze of forced misunderstanding that has tainted so much of their dealings. A history of lies that hobbled them at every turn.

Dean doesn't know magic, though. He does not perform it on his own. It is not his religion, he never spoke reverently to old gods, and he's imbued with a bruised kind of love that may never feel itself swell to the possibility of grace.

It's enough that he has his straws in his hand and he's counting them. But it's too much for him to be offering them over to Cas right now. Castiel can't tell him what to do with them.

If he comes back another day -- maybe tomorrow, maybe not -- and he's not passed out, half-way to crawling under the couch for a fallen bottle, Castiel will know it can stick.

Tonight, Cas can show him there's help and there's mercy. And he did a good job asking for at least one of those things.

He slides two fingers of his right hand to Dean's temple and flushes the pain away with grace. He will continue to detox, but he won't feel the effects for a while.

It might be a test. At least a little bit.

Feeling good, knowing that Cas can make him feel good and he doesn't have to experience this pain - will he just use that as a crutch and keep drinking? Or will he choose any one of a thousand other fucking things to do with his day?

Perhaps he will keep asking, 'What couldn't you make me understand?' And endeavor to understand.

The whole world belongs to a Winchester. And he's mad if he thinks Cas wouldn't give it to him if he just asked.

Dean moans relief as the physical pain ebbs away. Kissing Cas softly seems almost reactionary.

Castiel lets this happen. But briefly. And pulls him away, again, with as much kindness as possible.

He will see, tomorrow.

"Stay," Dean pleads.

No.

He knows that all he'll do is sit at that exit on the highway, again, until the world has awoken once more.

But he'll do it so he can come home to something different.

To Dean, who wants it to be different.

**Author's Note:**

> But when you fell asleep  
> With blood on your teeth,  
> I just got in my car and drove away  
> Listen to me, butterfly  
> There's only so much wine  
> That you can drink in one life  
> But it will never be enough  
> To save you from  
> The bottom of your glass  
> ([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHZLHPLzEdY))


End file.
